MISSION & HISTORY

Beam Camp was founded in 2004 by Brian Cohen and Danny Kahn to provide children with exciting experiences in creative problem-solving through working with their hands and actively collaborating with others.

Since then, Beam Camp has guided 1000+ campers to cultivate hands-on skills while exploring innovative thinking, design and the creative process. Each session campers and staff build a spectacular large-scale collaborative project chosen through an annual worldwide design competition. Beam Projects have received international media exposure and won major architecture prizes.

In late 2011, Danny and Brian founded the nonprofit Beam Center as the New York home for Beam's philosophy and practice. Beam Center now collaborates with ten NYC public middle and high schools and its Brooklyn home hosts full schedule of workshop and apprenticeship programs for students from 2nd through 12th grades.

Since its start Beam Camp has funded scholarships and tuition assistance for 40% of all campers. In 2015, Brian donated the Beam Camp operation to Beam Center and became its Executive Director.

Beam Camp is now an integral part of Beam Center's mission. In 2016 Beam Camp refined its summer program to sharpen the focus on skill-building, collaborative challenge, responsibility and mentorship, and deepen its commitment to serve youth from Beam Center's partner public schools and Community Based Organizations.

Thanks to David Golann, Emily Wilson and Danny Kahn for incredible photography.